Urban traffic congestion worsens

By: Drivers.com staff

Date: Tuesday, 25. September 2007

A new study by the Texas Transportation Institute tells us something we already intuitively know-that traffic congestion in major cities is getting worse.

The 1999 Annual Mobility Study is confined to major cities in the United States and draws its data from state and national sources to show conditions from 1977, the latest year for which information is available.

Among its findings, the study says that in more than half of the cities studied, the amount of time drivers spend stuck in traffic has grown by at least 360 per cent in the past 16 years.

In addition, drivers in one-third of the cities spend at least half as much time stuck in traffic as they do on vacation each year. Put another way, the annual cost of traffic congestion per driver in one-third of the cities exceeds the statewide average cost of auto insurance for those cities.

One measure, the Travel Rate Index, shows the difference between a trip taken during peak travel times and the same trip made in uncongested conditions. Drivers in more than half the cities studied needed anywhere from 20 to 50 per cent more time to complete the rush-hour journey in 1997. The peak-period penalty more than doubled in the 68 urban areas between 1982 and 1997.

Drivers in about one-third of the cities spent more than 40 hours stuck in traffic over the course of a year-nearly three times the amount of time experienced in 1982. And drivers in small to medium-sized cities have seen delays increase far more rapidly than drivers in the nation's largest urban centers. The financial cost of traffic congestion now exceeds $72 billion annually.

Congestion costs per driver ranged from $50 in Brownsville, Texas to $1,370 in Los Angeles. The study calculates the amount of fuel wasted in 1997 at 6.6 billion gallons.

"Mobility levels are declining just about everywhere, but they're declining fastest in those cities where transportation investment fails to keep pace with population growth," says one of the studies authors, Tim Lomax. "As we see it, a healthy economy means more travel by people and freight. If transportation systems aren't expanded this travel takes longer and is less reliable."

Researchers suggest multiple strategies to prevent a continued decline in mobility levels. For example, if building additional roadway capacity were the only option, the cities in the study would have to add an average of 37 more lane miles than they currently do to keep pace with only one year of increased traffic demand. If carpooling were the only answer, the average city would have to increase its annual number of carpool trips by at least 100,000 a year.

"There is not a need for a specific option so much as there is a need for consensus that transportation is an important element of our cities, and something will be done to address the mobility issues," Lomax says. "This starts at the local level with a discussion about which options are right for the area and how they will be funded."

Please click here for more information on the annual studies.